


I'll Softly Rise

by Preelikeswriting



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Catatonic Jason Todd, Gen, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Lost Days Jason, Not as much fluff as intended, Resurrected Jason Todd, and all that implies, brief allusions to rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23443237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Preelikeswriting/pseuds/Preelikeswriting
Summary: While wrapping up an investigation into a human trafficking ring, Dick stumbles across a brother he’d believed to be long dead.---Prompt: "Locked Up and Left Behind" for April Fools Fluff Flip... with not nearly as much fluff and intended
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 23
Kudos: 553
Collections: Bat Hugs, Dick & Jason, everybody loves dick





	I'll Softly Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Saw a prompt, figured I might as well try my hand at it. Even if it is an hour past April 1st now.

Human trafficking cases were always rough. There was no satisfaction at the end of them, only exhaustion and the knowledge that for every person they had managed to save, there were a dozen beyond their reach. 

Dick shivered as he made his way to the warehouse, the rain leaving a bone-deep chill behind as it slid off him. His ribs ached from the blow he’d taken earlier in the night. It wasn’t debilitating by any means, but he knew he’d be getting an earful from Alfred for not telling the other he was hurt. But he’d need this, and he knew that if Batman had known he was hurt, he would have sent him back to the cave with Robin.

Dick needed to see this to the end, and he knew that Bruce needed to see that Tim was home and safe. It wasn’t the first time the new Robin had gotten hurt, but Bruce reacted like it was every time it happened. And well, it didn’t help that it was the edge of an explosion that had thrown Tim with bone-breaking force. 

The massive fireball that had consumed the back of the boat, had taken out more than a few traffickers as well, and Dick found he wasn’t as torn up over the loss of human life as he maybe should have been. Seeing Tim, laid out like that, fire in the background was like something out of a nightmare. He couldn’t imagine how it had been for Bruce.

So, Dick had given his partner the all clear, told Batman to bring Robin back to the cave while he cleared the trafficker’s warehouse for any remaining victims.

\---

It wasn’t warm enough just then for thunder, but even if it had been, Dick wasn’t sure he would have been able to hear it over the sound of rain reverberating off a yard of metal roofs. He hoped it was helping GCFD with the fire, if he listened carefully he could just make out the din of sirens further down the docks.

The side door creaked as Dick opened it. There weren’t supposed to be any guards left. The traffickers had cut their losses when they’d realized the bats were on to them. Grabbed what goods and people they could and made for the bay. Even still, he allowed one of his escrima sticks to slide into his grasp in preparation.

The rain was even louder from inside, but Dick didn’t miss the tense silence that lingered, like someone bitting their tongue. Then, from the shadows of the far corner, Dick spotted movement. He tapped the side of his mask to activate the night vision, and the lenses clicked into place.

Across the room was a series of cages, some reminiscent in size to the ones at Haley’s, where others looked like they were meant for large dogs. It was hard to tell with the smaller ones, but there were definitely people in some of them.

Dick jogged his way over there, mindful of his ribs, coming to a stop a few meters away. The people, girls mostly it seemed, though there were a few young boys hidden among them, were hunkered together as far away as they could get. It was dark out and it was clear they had no idea if he was friend or foe. 

Reaching into his belt, Dick drew out a series of glow sticks and cracked them, worried that anything more would hurt their eyes. The sharp noises drew out little breaths of fear, but Dick was quick to raise his hands up nonthreateningly.

“Hey, hey,” he said softly, “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m here to let you go. Okay?”

The silence was broken then by a little cry of, “Nightwing?” A little boy with dark skin wiggled his way out of the grasp of the others and to the front of the cage.

“Hey,” Dick squatted down in front of him, biting back a wince, “are you okay?”

“I’m cold,”

“Yeah? I’m sorry. I’m gonna get you out of there and get you warm. How does that sound?”

The little boy nodded, messy curls bouncing a little as he did, “Will you help me find my mom?”

“Of course I will,” Dick said seriously, “I promise,” He reached down and picked up a glowstick handing it to the kid through the bars, “I’m gonna go find a way to let you out. Can you bring this to your friends for me so they can see better?”

The boy nodded again and hurried back to the huddle.

“I’ll be right back,” Dick said to to the room, “I’m gonna go find some keys.”

Using his night vision Dick found his way to the warehouse office, tucked back in a hallway off the main room. The space was cluttered and messy, half-eaten food and clothing spread about, and bisected by a curtain down the middle. One of the traffickers had clearly been living there, probably whoever’s job it was to mind their victims.

Luckily for Dick, there was a hook just above the desk with a key ring, making his job much easier. Grabbing a hold of them, he hurried back toward the cages eager to free the people trapped inside.

This time as he approached the girls were less wary, one of them was all the way at the front with her hands wrapped around the bars. “Here we go,” Dick breathed after a few false starts, as he got the first one open. After waiting for a second to make sure there weren’t any other restraints he’d missed, Dick moved on to the next one. 

In the end, there were twenty girls in total and five boys. To his relief, none of the small cages were occupied, even if they showed evidence that they had been not too long ago. 

“Is anyone injured?” Dick asked, scanning them the best he could while still giving them space. The little boy had hugged him briefly before running to hide behind a thin woman Dick assumed was his sister, and no one had approached him since.

There was a click in his ear, as Alfred’s steady voice began to flow through his communicator, “I’m calling to let you know that Master Robin is quite alright,” Dick breathed out a sigh of relief. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as it could have been, the fact that Tim wasn’t in mortal danger was what had allowed Dick to leave his side in the first place. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t relieving to hear confirmation of it. 

“That’s good to hear,” Dick responded, “I’m wrapping up now, can you direct GCPD to my location, let them know I have twenty-five people here,” 

“Twenty-five, good heavens, I’ll send them your way promptly,”

“Thanks, A," Dick responded, "you’re godsent,”

He clicked off and turned to face the girls, “GCPD is on their way now, they’ll get you to where you need to be.

They stared at him, not quite warily, but certainly not trusting. “Did you find the others?” a girl spoke up. She was maybe fifteen, lanky and blonde in a way that reminded Dick of Spoiler.

“Yeah, we got them,” 

A degree of tension seemed to be released at those words, and as if Dick had given them permission to relax, the girls slowly turned to each other, no longer paying him the attention of a potential threat. 

“Um,” Dick turned to face the questioning voice, it was the same girl again, but this time her voice was more hushed.

“Everything okay?”

“I was just… wondering, if earlier, when you got the others, if there was this boy,” Dick frowned, there hadn’t been any boys at all earlier. “He’s really, quiet, I mean, I don’t think anyone has ever heard him say anything. But,” she took a breath, “we were together when we got grabbed, in Crime Alley, and he was nice, and…”

“Did something happen to him?”

She hesitated, not like she didn’t know, but like she didn’t want to say, “One of the guys that kept us here, the traffickers, the one that was always watching, he grabbed him away from the rest of us this morning, and I was just hoping that he…” She swallowed, “he got bored a lot, and sometimes he would take people away, and they wouldn’t come back,”

Dick tried to keep the pained look off his face as he met her gaze. They’d found bodies afterall. This ring was better than most at keeping their heads down, but every once and awhile one would still turn up.

“Can you tell me his name? So I can ask around?”

She shook her head slowly, “it’s like I said, he never talked.” she swallowed, “He… he had a lot of scars, all over, but a lot on his head, and sometimes people think he’s stupid because it takes him a while,” her eyes started to pool with tears. Dick reached out slowly and put his hands on her shoulders, “but he’s really nice,” she cried, “and he’s smart and he looks out for people. He’s strong!” she insisted, “he’s really scrawny but he can fight, I’ve seen him!”

“Okay,” Dick said softly, “okay,” he closed his eyes, “Do you know where he was taken?” It was a longshot, but he felt he owed it to this girl.

She nodded, her eyes red as she brought her hand up to her nose, “he takes people back to his office. I couldn’t see it from where… from where they kept us, but, maybe he brought him with him when they all ran away,”

Dick nodded, he could hear sirens approaching. “Okay sweetheart, I’ll go look for him. Alright?”

“Alright,” she whispered.

He released her shoulders and stepped away, making his way towards the hallway. As he turned the corner he could hear GCPD entering, and to his relief, he could make out Gordon’s voice among them. He sent up a silent thanks to God for Alfred, knowing that the situation was well in hand.

Stepping into the office this time was a different experience, knowing now what might have gone down within the walls. It was just as much of a mess as he’d left the place, but now that Dick was paying more attention, he could make out the faintly acidic scent of smoke. It would be easy to write it off as a remnant of the previous owner’s smoking habit, but the smell didn’t cling to anything, it just hung in the air.

There was a trashcan on the far side of the desk, inside it was full of chared, what Dick was sure was once shipping manifests and logs and… Dick dipped his hand in, removing the piece of glossy photo paper. He felt his stomach turn, it was a girl, young, bruised, laying displayed across a bed. It slipped from his fingers and onto the desk. fuck, just... fuck.

His eyes ghosted around the room and landed on the self hung curtain he’d noticed last time, a curtain he could just make out in the corner of the picture. Dick reached forward, slowly, hating the bile that was already making it’s way up his throat.

There was a bed behind it alright, and it wasn’t empty.

Dick felt his brain stop and restart as he stood there, staring at the scene before him, starring at the scrawny, hauntingly familiar boy, sitting handcuffed to the bedframe. He let out a strangled little noise and stumbled forward, the sound prompting the boy to look up.

Oh God, he looked, he looked so much like him. His little brother. “Jay?” He said, half a whisper and half a sob. He couldn’t help himself.

The boy, the boy who looked so much like Jason that Dick was sure he was losing his mind, was drowning in a big red hoodie, and what looked like dress pants, riped and dirtied beyond repair. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, and only one sock which, itself, was halfway rolled down his foot like he’d walked out of it without noticing.

He blinked up at Dick with big hazel eyes from under a mat of long dark curls that needed cutting. He opened his mouth a little and closed it again, his lips starting to shape words that refused to be audible. Dick knelt at his feet, taking the thin wrists into his hands.

“Little Wing?” he asked, too afraid of disappointment to properly hope.

“Nuh,”

Dick’s eyes shot up to the boy’s face, his expression furrowed and tense in a way he’d yet to see. “Jason?”

“Nuhhh, Nnn, N,” He settled on, and Dick nearly sobbed.

“Yeah Jay, it’s me, it’s N. I’m gonna get you out of here,”

“B,”

“Yeah, kiddo,” Dick’s eyes filled with tears as he fumbled with his lock picks, “we’re gonna go see B. And then we’re never gonna let you out of our sight ever again,”

The handcuffs fell open with a click, and Dick couldn’t help himself, surging forward to take his little brother into his arms. Because that’s who he had to be. It couldn't be anything but real. Dick wouldn't allow himself to consider anything else.

Jason was skin and bones under his hoodie, he could feel his ribs as he pet his other hand through the boy’s tangled hair. Suddenly, Dick felt just the faintest of weights on his back as Jason wrapped his arms around his waist. He squeezed his eyes shut and kissed his brother’s hairline, hating that he could feel raised scar tissue under his lips.

“Okay,” he breathed, shifting his arms, and picking Jason up, “okay, we’re good, we’re okay,” He picked his way out of the office gingerly, trying and failing to not dwell on what could have happened if the Bats had moved against the trafficking ring even a day later.

The rain had changed to a drizzle, and Dick pushed his way outside through the back of the warehouse. Dawn was starting to break on the horizon turning the sky a lighter shade of gray. There were still officers milling about, so Dick had to move carefully to where he'd stashed his bike. Then there came the logistical issue of what to do with Jason. He didn’t trust the boy to be able to hold onto his back, so Dick shifted the boy from his side to his front, using a hand and the body of the bike to hold his little brother in place.

Dick took the backroads to the manor. It was the long way, but they were less likely to encounter traffic this early in the morning. Plus it gave him time to think. What could he say? What could he possibly say to make this alright?

Careful not to jar Jason, who had nestled against him for warmth, Dick reached up and called Alfred through the comms. 

“Master Nightwing?” There were so many layers to his words, worry and confusion, and love, ready to help in any way he could, “Is everything quite alright? Your tracker indicates you are almost home, do I need to prepare the medical bay?”

“No, no, Alfred I’m fine,”

Dick heard a sound on the other end of the line, and he realized faintly that his voice had given too much away. “You most certainly are not!” Alfred scolded, “What on earth has happened?”

“Something good, Alfie,” Dick made a choked little noise, “Something really good I think,”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” he shuttered, he was that close to losing it again, but he couldn’t. He had to keep it together until he got Jason home. “Is Bruce in the cave?”

“No,” Alfred replied slowly, “He’s tucking Master Robin into bed. His broken leg has him quite out of it at the moment. Do you need me to fetch him?”

Dick shook his head before remembering that he couldn’t see him, “No, it’s- it’s probably best he’s not there. Just at first,”

“...And you say this is a good surprise?”

He laughed wetly, “yeah, it is, it really is,” he sniffled a little, “I’ve got to go Alfie, ETA five,” Then Dick clicked off his comm before the old butler could respond. “Almost there Jason,” he breathed, “Almost home,” He got nothing in response but the feeling of Jason shifting against his stomach.

The cave’s darkness was almost shocking as he drove inside. It had been a while since he’d been out late enough for the sun to come up. Alfred was waiting for him at the entrance, and from the way he stood, he could tell the man had been fretting.

“Master Richard, what on earth?” he asked, hurrying as quickly as was proper as Dick stepped off his bike, conscious of his precious cargo. “Who is this?”

“Hey, Alf, can you prep the Batcomputer to run a DNA match?”

“A DNA match- what on earth is going-” Alfred froze, as Jason shifted in Dick’s grasp, “Oh my dear God,” he said as he stumbled, bracing himself against one of the Batmobiles, “how is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said, shaking his head, “he was just… there,”

Alfred reached out as if to touch him, and jerked his hand back suddenly, hiding being the veneer of professionalism. “I’ll get the program running immediately,” Dick hushed Jason as he plucked a hair from his head and handed it off to the man.

He walked to the medical area, the supplies either still half out from Tim’s leg earlier, or left by an Alfred concerned about his eldest grandson’s strange behavior. Jason protested being woken, and Dick was taken aback yet again by just how small he was. He didn’t look like he’d aged at all since… since last he’d seen him.

He started by whipping away the dirt from his brother’s skin, and quietly making notes of the scars that littered his thin body. Carefully he eased him out of his hoodie, Jason’s eyes glued to his face. Dick was distressed to find that his brother had no shirt underneath, but even more distressed by the enormous Y shaped scar that ran down his torso. Dick let out a pained noise as he stood there frozen, hands shaking like leaves.

“Alfred, was that Dick I heard?” Bruce’s voice carried across the cave bringing a rush of dread with it. Dick had the inexplicable urge to hide his little brother away if only to halt the absolute firestorm of emotions that was about to descend on them. “Alfred?” Bruce’s feet came to a stop, “What are you doing?” his voice was pained and raw in a way Dick wasn’t used to hearing. “Why do you have Jason’s files open?”

In just that moment the computer dinged, indicating a match had been found. “Alfred I- what’s going on? I don’t understand,” the last part was firmer, losing the lost edge to his words.

“Bruce,” Dick spoke up, almost without thinking, “over here,”

He could hear hurried footsteps and then- “what’s going-” Bruce choked, eyes falling on Jason seated on the observation table. 

“B,”

Bruce reared back, snagging Dick’s wrist as he went and shoving him behind him.

“Bruce!”

“No!” Bruce snapped, his grip almost bruising, “Jason Todd is dead! This is- this is impossible!”

“Bruce listen-” 

“Master Bruce, if I could?” Alfred moved towards them smoothly, extracting Dick from Bruce’s grip, “I could hardly believe it myself, but the DNA seems to confirm it. Somehow, miraculously," He said, a faint waver in his voice, sounding closer to tears than Dick had ever heard him, "this is Master Jason,”

Bruce shook his head, stumbling back, “no, no-”

“B?” They froze and turned to look at Jason. He was staring at Bruce, thin tracks of tears creeping down his face, “B?”

Dick put his hand against Bruce’s back and pressed him forward slowly. “Jason?” he asked weakly, his voice thin and wet. He reached out shakily, taking Jason’s face in his hands. Dick watched as Jason blinked and Bruce moved his thumbs to brush the tears away from his son’s face.

Bruce’s shoulders shook first with faint tremors and then great heaves as he pulled Jason into his arms tightly, as if to do anything less would be to let Jason slip away.

Dick knew this wasn’t the end, that in the morning there would be a hundred tests to run and members of the justice league to consult. That Bruce would be paranoid and suspicious enough for all of them, and that they might never get all the answers they wanted. But for now, for the first time in a long time, Dick’s family felt whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> I sincerely hope everyone is safe and healthy, and that you all have a good place to weather out the storm that is COVID-19.  
> I love you all, there are better days ahead.  
> -Pree


End file.
